Place: Wonderful Cave (Brgy. Patar - Bolinao, Pangasinan)
Date: 10 July 2008

Aunt Mary said that there’s another cave near Enchanted Cave, and at first mom didn’t want to check it out anymore - apart from being the KJ herself, she also hit her head in the cave and didn’t want to get hit anymore - but since my cousins and I wanted to check it out (we were already there, what’s the point of not checking it out), we all still went.

Like the Enchanted Cave, there’s an entrance fee of 20 pesos per person. Mom bought the tickets this time, and upon checking the caves, we were so disappointed at how the place looked like. For one, the flooring near the entrance of the cave was muddy and slippery, and not only that, entering the cave is so difficult, we actually don’t know how we will enter! The opening wasn’t that big, there was no lighting inside, the concrete steps were too small to fit a foot, and the bamboo pole available for us to hold on to was already old and brittle! How can we enter the cave if our safety wasn’t ensured?

Needless to say, no one dared enter the cave anymore. We just content ourselves having pictures outside of it, just so we have some proof that “we were there.” I was really disappointed to the point that I was so tempted to talk to the owner about my complaints! They were asking people to pay an entrance fee yet they can’t secure the visitors’ welfare? No one even guided us to the cave! If want to make a living out of it, might as well think of the visitors and not just the money it will bring into their pockets.

Aunt Mary said there’s still another cave, but mom was more disappointed as ever, so she violently suggested we go back to the beach house that instant. Actually, the driver wanted to check out the lighthouse, but mom was insisting it was far and hard to reach, so dismayed as the driver and I may be, we all head home.

Brother and I have been asking mom since then if we could check out the lighthouse in Bolinao, but she didn’t want to. To her, a lighthouse is just a lighthouse. Just this weekend, I got to watch two TV shows showcasing Bolinao, and I saw that getting to the lighthouse wasn’t really that difficult. Bummer. Double bummer when I saw on You Tube that the third cave Aunt Mary suggested we check (the one we didn’t checked) was actually a much better one compared to this. Hmmm, I sure hope they would change the name of the cave for it wasn’t really wonderful at all!

*** Jenn ***